In 2020, when Covid disrupted the education sector worldwide, the UAE was one of the very few countries who managed to maintain all the academic terms and their curriculums – while respecting all safety measures.
This was made possible largely because of the Mohamed Bin Rashid program. The program was launched in 2012 to bring distance learning to every student, with WinjiGO at the heart of its learning ecosystem.
Before Covid, this learning ecosystem was designed as a non-intrusive solution that would not disrupt, but enrich and complement, the traditional classroom experience. At the time, only an estimated maximum of 10% – 20% of UAE students would need access to the solutions at the same time.
When Covid hit, all students were suddenly required to learn from home, and use the platform through the internet. The learning ecosystem had to scale up to allow 100% of public schools students – more than 300,000 – to access it at the same time. In addition to that, many private schools did not have any remote learning solution in place, so we also had to quickly expand the system to serve 100,000+ additional students.
In order to empower teachers to cope with such drastic change, we provided distance training programs for more than 35,000 teachers within one week, with more than 200,000 hours of training delivered and tracked.
Some of WinjiGO key features were crucial for ensuring uninterrupted education in the time of emergency. First , thanks to central course planning, the MoE could prepare and share a well-structured learning plan. Teachers had all the tools to send assignments to students and follow up on their work at home, and communicate effectively with their students. Finally, parents, who during the lockdown acquired a central role in their children’s learning, could easily and help them study.
